A thoroughly researched and engagingly written biography of CIA dissenter Philip Agee, this book focuses on the influences that shaped his political activism throughout his life and the nuanced reasons for his turning.
Jonathan Stevenson’s A Drop of Treason — the first biography of this contentious man — is a good portrait of Agee and his place in the history of American foreign policy and the intelligence community during the Cold War and beyond.
Unlike mere whistleblowers, Agee exposed American spies by publicly blowing their covers. His was a lifelong political struggle that firmly allied him with the social movements of the global left.
Stevenson examines Agee’s decision to turn, how he sustained it, and how his actions intersected with world events.
“Agee was part of the opposition, but he was no longer loyal,” Stevenson says.
Stevenson’s book seeks to unravel the mix of personal and ideological motives that drove Agee. The book treats “complex issues with admirable clarity,” Justin Vogt said in a review for The New York Times.
